The construction industry’s hiring process is tough. Many applicants lack resumes, making interview questions extremely important to get down to an applicant’s capabilities. If you’re looking to reduce employee turnover and get the most qualified applicants for your project, you need to really hit your interview questions.
Hiring: What to Look for in An Employee
Prior to interviewing candidates, you should have a firm idea of the skills you are looking for. What traits are considered valuable in your firm? How much previous construction experience do you require? Most employers are looking for hard-working, independent, self-motivated, and committed workers.
Interviewing Construction Workers
When you are interviewing, you need to dig deep with behavioral interview questions. These questions are designed to probe how a candidate handled a situation or task in a previous position and to shed light on how he or she will approach challenges and fit in with your company culture. Remember, it’s easy to lie on a resume, but behavioral questions reveal capability. These are the questions that reveal the truth fast.
To create behavioral interview questions, first list the most important job tasks, challenges in the workplace, and personal characteristics needed for success in the job. Many of these items can be found in the job description. For each item on your list, write one interview question, along with follow-up questions you may ask if you need to probe the candidate for more details.
A prospective construction worker will need to show you in the interview that they are dependable, use sound judgment, take direction well, and have the physical capability to get the job done correctly and quickly. Adaptability is important for construction workers, as they will have tight schedules, heavy workloads, demanding duties, and be required to interact with a variety of people. Discuss a candidate’s knowledge of construction techniques and equipment.
Interview Questions for Hiring in the Construction Industry
No matter the industry you should tailor your questions to uncover the candidate’s real-world experience. Use the conversation to get a view of the candidate’s capabilities, responsibilities, and fit with your company.
The following are examples of interview questions for the construction industry:
- Describe some of your most recent projects?
- How familiar are you with interpreting blueprints and electrical drawings?
- How strong are your math skills?
- What do you know about the company?
- What could you bring to the company?
- How have you demonstrated safe work practices in a former position?
- How do you handle conflict on a worksite?
- Have you ever walked off a job? If so, what was the reason?
- Tell me about a time when you solved an issue with little or no direction. What was the outcome?
- What is on your checklist when you are getting ready to leave the job at the end of the day?
- Tell me about a suggestion you made on the job that was implemented.
- What are the procedures you follow to prevent on-the-job injuries?
- What were the biggest roadblocks you have ever encountered on a project? How did you resolve them?
- How do you prioritize the tasks of a job?
- What is your favorite building or structure?
- What kind of safety training have you had?
Interview Questions for Specific Construction Jobs
There are many different skills sets and positions in the construction industry and you need to adjust your questions towards those specific jobs
Plumber
- Tell me about a time when an unclear or incomplete plan led to a problem? How did you handle it?
- Would you rather work alone or as part of a team?
Carpenter
- Do you have any specialties?
- Walk us through your process, from first seeing the blueprints, to your final accuracy check.
- Have you ever had a job where you traveled a lot?
- How did you deal with being away from home and spending so much time around your co-workers?
Construction Laborer
- How do you ensure the accuracy and safety of your work?
- Do you have experience working at various site?
- What are some more specialized tasks that you have helped with in the past?
Scheduler
- How do you manage and maintain your labor budget?
- How do decide on a daily job cost?
- What is your success rate with managing and staying in a labor budget?
- Do you have any experience with job costing?
- Tell me about a time you made a project more efficient by changing the way you worked with a team.
Project Manager
- What has been your biggest challenge to date in getting workers to comply with safety regulations?
- Do you have experience negotiating contracts with vendors and subcontractors?
- Tell us about a successful negotiation and an unsuccessful negotiation. What factors made your negotiations successful?
- How do you ensure a project is meeting goals and on time?
Recruiting the Right Workers
For your business to grow, you need to find and hire the right employees. Effectively managing your human capital – your company’s most valuable asset – is crucial for survival. EPAY Systems offers fully integrated human capital management software solutions to help you recruit, manage, and pay your employees.
Our cloud-based system’s labor budget and job costing alerts make it easy for your project to stay on budget. The system easily integrates recruiting and applicant tracking with onboarding, time and attendance tracking, payroll and taxes, performance management, benefits administration, and more. With the recruiting and applicant tracking feature, you can prescreen applicants, rate candidates, tag key applications, and significantly speed up the hiring process, making hiring a simpler process.
Furthermore, with budget reports available within scheduling tasks, it means that saving money and sticking to a budget has never been easier for schedulers.
See what other time-saving tasks EPAY can help you simplify on your next project with our quick two-minute tour.
